Whitney Houston

August 9, 1963 – February 11, 2012

“Crack is cheap. I make too much to ever smoke crack. Let’s get that straight. OK? We don’t do crack. We don’t do that. Crack is whack.”

Whitney Houston was pronounced dead at 3:55 p.m. on Saturday, February 11, 2012

She was found unresponsive in room 434 of the Beverly Hilton Hotel.

Whitney had been seen drinking heavily at a party the night before It is also known that she was taking Xanax.

Her last meal was reportedly a hamburger, fries and a turkey sangritch.

According to TMZ, Whitney took a bath, and after an hour she hadn’t emerged from the bathroom. An assistant entered the room and found Whitney submerged in the tub. The gravy boat apparently contained olive oil, part of Whitney’s beauty regimen.

The hotel became more of a zoo, reporters converging. Brian Donnelly was on the scene and snapped these snaps as they crews gathered.

Whitney’s body was removed from the hotel and taken downtown for an autopsy. TMZ/Splash got this amazing photograph.

By Monday, the work was complete and her family was making arrangements to have Whitney’s body picked up for whatever memorial they are planning.

Whitney’s official website put this wonderful image on the homepage.

On Wednesday, April 4, 2012, the autopsy report was released. I’ll spare you the techy stuff – here is the most interesting:

She checked in to the Hilton on Monday, Feb. 6. She had a sore throat for a few days.

On Saturday around 1 p.m. her assistant left to go shopping, told Nippy to take a bath and prepare for the big party that night. Returning an hour later, she found Nippy face-down in the bathtub. Whitney was submerged for an hour in 93.5 degree water. Girl was scalded. Bad.

Assistant and Nippy’s bodyguard got her out of the tub and called 911.

In the room: a chair and a computer tower with a Fedora on top of it. A dresser with a mini bar. An open bottle of champagne. TONS of prescription bottles, old and new (filled at Rite-Aid, Walgreens and Mickey Fine in Beverly Hills), a beer on the nightstand and an ashtray filled with butts.

On the countertop were remnants of a white powdery substance, and a portable mirror on a base. Mmhm.

When detectives arrived, she was covered with a white linen sheet. The floor was soaked with water and the tub had about 12″ of water in it.

Whitney was bejeweled – on her right writs was a bracelet made up of a band of numerous white stones, and attached to the band was a cross made up of similar small white stones. A ring worn on the fourth digit of the right hand had a large white stone, possibly tinged yellow, with small with stones along the band. Each earlobe appeared to be pierced twice.

Kitchen detail: She wore a weave of short length dark brown hair or fibers and some highlighting. The front margin of the weave was in a position slightly back from the front hairline, revealing the woman’s natural head hair beneath it. Her natural hair was short, dark brown and kinky. Wig was snatched off her head and put in a brown bag and accompanied Nippy downtown to the Coroner.

The next day, Findadeath friend Alicia Ross found time today to take a snap of the mini-shrine at the front gates of Whitney’s home in Mendham, NJ.

By Saturday night, the trendy night-club tributes began.

Thank you, Alicia!

Her uncompleted death certificate was released, with no official cause of death noted. It will probably take weeks for the tox tests.

On Thursday, March 22, 2012, Whitney’s cause of death was released.

Drowning combined with the effects of atherosclerotic heart disease and cocaine use.

Coke and water. Done.

Thanks, Paul Blum

The Grammy ceremony on the following evening was a Whitney suck-fest. I’m all for a good tear-jerking tribute, I am, but I actually became bored to death of her death. People who never met Whitney were called upon to comment on her demise. “I never met her, but I always heard good things about her.” psh.

In the meantime, Whitney was taken downtown to the LA County Coroner for autopsy. Her body was released and flown on a private jet (Courtesy of Tyler Perry) to the East Coast.

Her funeral was held at the New Hope Baptist Church in Newark.

Thank you, Audrey in Arkieland!

For the time being, you can watch the entire funeral until somebody figures out how to make money out of it.

Her funeral was a huge media event which I understand will soon be released on dvd for your enjoyment. A lot of Whitney’s personal items are going up for auction soon, and the family has emptied the hotel room of EVERYTHING… sheets, garbage can, towels… so no one else can profit from Whitney.

But…

Someone made a bundle selling a casket photograph of Whitney, which was published by the National Enquirer. Thank you Cayley for sending it in.

Whitney’s body was taken by hearse (thanks, Drie!) to be buried in Fairview Cemetery in Westfield, New Jersey.

Whitney was a grown woman who made her own choices. Much like with Anna Nicole, the people behind Being Bobby Brown took her on a very public ride to “doody-bubble land”. I think Brown will have a lot to answer for, karmically.